Battle of Caporetto

The Battle of Caporetto was fought from 24 October to 19 November 1917 on the Italian front of World War I. The Austro-Hungarian and German armies launched an offensive on the Italian front following their defeat of the Russian Kerensky Offensive, breaking the two-year stalemate and attrition on the Italian front with a decisive victory over the Royal Italian Army. However, the Central Powers victory failed to knock Italy out of the war.

Background
After Italy entered the war on the Allied side in May 1915, Italian and Austro-Hungarian forces were locked in a prolonged stalemate. The fighting took place in the area between Italy and Austria-Hungary, with active sectors in Trentino province to the north and at the Isonzo River to the east. Except for an Austro-Hungarian attack at Asiago in Trentino in May 1916, the Italians took the offensive. Repeated Italian assaults in the Isonzo sector achieved no decisive result. In January 1917, after the Ninth Battle of the Isonzo, the Italians requested support from British and French forces, but none could be spared. Offensives continued through 1917, with the Eleventh Battle of the Isonzo in August. Meanwhile, the collapse of the Russian army after the Kerensky Offensive reduced the number of German troops required on the Eastern Front.

Battle
The fighting on the Italian front was often conducted in terrible conditions. The Isonzo sector, on the modern border between Italy and Slovenia, consisted of barren limestone cliffs where soldiers survived in caves or makeshift shelters.

Repeated Italian offensive had brought high losses for high losses for both sides. The Eleventh Battle of the Isonzo, from August to September 1917, resulted in almost 150,000 Italian casualties and more than 100,000 Austro-Hungarian losses. Austrian emperor Charles I and his senior commanders believed their forces on the Isonzo were close to the breaking point and would not survive another defensive battle.

In line with the military thinking of the time, the Austro-Hungarians decided that the best solution was to take the offensive. The emperor asked the Germans to take over from Austro-Hungarian troops on the Eastern Front so that his forces could mount an attack on Italy. However, German military leaders doubted the competence of the Austro-Hungarian army and were eager to extend their own influence. They insisted on sending German troops to the Italian front and created a new combined German and Austro-Hungarian army, under German command.

German buildup
The Austro-German Fourteenth Army, commanded by General Otto von Below, was concentrated in a sector of the Isoonzo front opposite the town of Caporetto (now Kobarid, Slovenia), where Italian positions were lightly held. German mountain troops were brought in, including the elite Bavarian Alpenkorps in which future tank commander Erwin Rommel, known as the Desert Fox in World War II, was a junior officer. Other German soldiers and artillery were transferred by rail from Riga on the Baltic, where fighting had ended in early September. The Italian commander, General Luigi Cadorna, was vaguely aware of the arrival of German troops, but confident of the strength of his own forces. The bulk of Italian troops were kept in vulnerable forward positions.

Italian collapse
Moving at night, the Austro-German forces reached their attack positions undetected. In the early hours of 24 October, they unleashed a furious bombardment, first with gas shells and then high explosives. At 7:00 AM, the infantry assault began. The Germans used newly adopted "infiltration tactics", penetrating in depth without halting to secure their flanks or take out Italian strongpoints. As the 14th Army advanced, Italian morale and discipline collapsed. Hundreds of thousands of Italian soldiers simply fled toward the rear. Others surrendered en masse. Cadorna struggled to turn this rout into an orderly retreat to the Tagliamento River. Fleeing Italian soldiers were shot by officers attempting to restore order. The pursuit by Austro-German forces slowed as problems without transportation mounted. They crossed the Tagliamento in early November, forcing Cadorna to order a further withdrawal to the Piave River.

Aftermath
Beyond the Piave, a formidable obstacle, the Italians held a defensive line. The Central Powers had advanced some 80 miles in less than two weeks. About 250,000 Italian soldiers were taken prisoner, and 30,000 were killed or wounded. Instead of causing Italy to fall apart, the defeat succeeded in overcoming political and social divisions, as the country rallied to defend itself. A new Italian government came to power under Prime Minister Vittorio Orlando in late October. Orlando successfully appealed to his allies for military support, and British and French divisions were soon arriving in Italy. Cadorna paid the price of defeat. He was dismissed on 8 November and the cautious General Armando Diaz became the new commander-in-chief.

Aftermath
In the aftermath of Caporetto, Italy's weak position was matched by that of Austria-Hungary. An immediate consequence of Caporetto was the creation of an Allied Supreme War Council to coordinate strategy. It also led the United States to declare Austria-Hungary in December 1917, seven months after it had done so against Germany. The new Italian commander-in-chief, General Armando Diaz, restored morale by improving his troops' living conditions and refraining from costly offensives. At home, the Orlando government cracked down on antiwar elements in Italy. German troops were soon withdrawn from the Italian front in preparation for offensives on the Western Front in spring 1918. Both Italy and Austria-Hungary were reluctant to resume offensive action. In June 1918, Austro-Hungarian forces attacked across the Piave River and in Trentino, but the operation failed. The Italians did not return to the offensive until October 1918, when Austria-Hungary was on the verge of collapse. Italy's Vittorio Veneto Offensive regained much of the ground lost a year earlier.